Instacart fired my wife for running for office. My wife asked for approval to run from her boss, the Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, who approved it and the company was excited for her to run.
A couple days after my wife launched her campaign, Instacart did a 180 and told her they had to fire her for running. Bad for business to run for office and criticize a Republican incumbent!
My wife was also pregnant and she told them. They fired her the next day.
My son lost his job so did InstaCart for a while. He got really good at it and started making good money. Then they sent him to an apartment complex but didn't give him an apartment number.
He called support who contacted the customer and said they were on their way and could he wait five minutes. Of course he did but 30 minutes went by.
Contacted support again who said customer would be there in five minutes but, 15 minutes later, support said to just take the goods back to the store.
He took the goods back to the store but the store refused to accept them. Support said he could just donate them or keep them.
Despite showing the back and forth text messages, he was deactivated for not delivering to the customer.
patentatt 1 hours ago [-]
Fascinatingly, this is not prima facie illegal in many US states! Wow. We live in a corporatist hell hole don’t we?
charcircuit 51 minutes ago [-]
What would be illegal about firing an employee who you think is causing your company to get a bad image?
darkstar999 41 minutes ago [-]
> The lawsuit says Instacart violated a California law that bars companies from preventing their employees from becoming candidates for public office, among other complaints.
wpm 39 minutes ago [-]
What would be the consequences of ensuring that only those with enough personal wealth to be able to go without a job while campaigning can run for office?
sheepscreek 44 minutes ago [-]
She approached to ask for permission. If they had any reservations, that was the time to discuss them. She did what was expected of an employee. The fact that they blessed her and then went back on their word seems wrong.
Not a lawyer but my intuition says there might be some legal grounds here favouring the wife.
My take is someone even higher up found out later and did not like it. Now it’s entirely possible the individuals who gave their blessings were supportive of the party the wife was standing for, and the ones above them weren’t? Still whoever blessed the campaign did so in their capacity as a senior officer of the company. A total shit show nevertheless.
To the original commenter: sorry this happened to your wife. Hope she’s able to find another job that treats her right. Also congrats on the baby, hoping parenthood makes up for all of this and more. Sending the best of wishes your way.
njovin 40 minutes ago [-]
AFAIK in every US state a company can fire you for any reason that’s not protected, and “we told you this was okay but changed our minds” is as good a reason as any in the law’s eyes.
SoftTalker 35 minutes ago [-]
Correct. If she had something in writing, signed by a person with proper authority in the organization, she might be on stronger footing. But they could just find some other reason, or state "no reason" for her termination, and that's perfectly legal in an at-will employment.
GormHouj 25 minutes ago [-]
I think Montana is the only state not "at-will"
charcircuit 32 minutes ago [-]
If I ask my employer if I can start a YouTube channel and then after getting permission I start posting videos that make the company look bad, and showing how awesome competitor products were I wouldn't be surprised if I got fired. I wouldn't be fired for the account but what I did with it.
avs733 43 minutes ago [-]
Well in normal countries…firing them for something they did outside work. In American vernacular, something something free speech.
SoftTalker 34 minutes ago [-]
You have the right to free speech. Your employer, like anyone else, has a right to not be associated with what you say.
drewbitt 41 minutes ago [-]
Even if an employee has the authority to make a decision, executive leadership should still have the legal right to terminate someone if they disagree with that choice. Let's not make running a business illegal.
AdmiralAsshat 1 hours ago [-]
How's the lawsuit going?
mondomondo 1 hours ago [-]
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thinkindie 1 hours ago [-]
I see this totally wild she even had to ask permission for running for office, or at least from an European perspective.
PyWoody 1 hours ago [-]
I don't understand it from an American perspective. Is this a standard practice in large companies?
SoftTalker 38 minutes ago [-]
Political beliefs or views are not a "protected class" in US federal employment law. That said, most employers at least say that they support political participation, but once you start taking public actions it becomes a bit different.
If a person made a large contribution or gave other public support to an extremist candidate, an employer might not want any association with that.
If running for an office is going to take up a significant amount of one's time, such that it might impact availability for work during normal hours, an employer would care about that.
In this specfic case, if she was featuring "I work for Instacart" in any way in her campaign they might care about that.
If she was saying anything inflamatory or controversial, Instacart might not want to be associated with that.
So running for a nonpartisan office such as a local council or school board or similar would normally not be any issue. Anything where party politics feature prominently is going to be riskier.
thinkindie 1 hours ago [-]
Apparently.
63stack 54 minutes ago [-]
I don't understand why this is getting downvoted, I'm surprised as well
another_twist 31 minutes ago [-]
Wow. Cant you sue for wrongful termination ? I am assuming this was considered and not followed through. What are the legal details here ?
willio58 47 minutes ago [-]
It should be illegal to do what instacart did to your wife.
herval 1 hours ago [-]
They always had a slimy reputation. I interviewed there very early on and two of the engineers interviewing me told me they fire people 1 day from vesting constantly...
58 minutes ago [-]
mondomondo 1 hours ago [-]
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reticulates 1 hours ago [-]
I am of course very sympathetic to your wife and think it is outrageous that someone should lose their job this way but also given the insane behavior of the Trump administration, it seems like Instacart had no choice. I hope she wins the lawsuit and gets paid out but I can’t hate Instacart for being pragmatic.
jkaplowitz 1 hours ago [-]
> I can’t hate Instacart for being pragmatic
Can you criticize them instead for firing her for something that their Chief Corporate Affairs Officer explicitly gave her permission to do? If it was a matter of pragmatism, they could have declined her request for permission. (One might separately argue about whether this should be a matter of right vs a matter of permission, but regardless, she did seek permission and was granted it.)
skeeter2020 51 minutes ago [-]
>> but also given the insane behavior of the Trump administration, it seems like Instacart had no choice
That's a terrible attitude that's resulted in some of the worst behaviour of capitulation history has ever recorded. What will you call their "pragmatism" when your the target?
afavour 1 hours ago [-]
How many examples do we need of the Trump administration doing some illegal move then getting slapped down by the courts? This would be a slam dunk for DoorDash. That they chose to capitulate instead is damning.
reticulates 53 minutes ago [-]
The courts eventually ruling against the administration doesn’t undo the harm caused. A Trump tirade against Instacart could be a death sentence for the business.
skeeter2020 49 minutes ago [-]
Based on the ground you're treading I'd be careful with your casual use of "death sentence" when talking about something that is nothing of the sort, but behaviours that are only a few steps from the real thing.
> DoorDash said the median payment to be returned to workers amounts to around $48.
> City officials said about 700 workers are owed more than $10,000 each; more than 27,000 workers are owed more than $1,000; and more than 4,000 workers are owed more than $5,000.
DoorDash also spent (from what I can tell) (1+1.4+1.8) million dollars to campaign against Mamdani.
toomuchtodo 1 hours ago [-]
NYC recovered $131M in unpaid wages from DoorDash.
Culper Research released a report about a year ago indicating a large component of DoorDash labor is very likely undocumented workers (which is not meant to be derogatory towards these workers, but signal that DoorDash needs labor willing to take gig payments on offer to make the model work).
I don't think the platform economics are working post ZIRP ("zero interest rate policy") as wages rise and margins compress, would need more data to understand what forward curves look like.
jmyeet 10 minutes ago [-]
I love the Mamdani DoorDash story because it demonstrates that government can work. When it doesn't, it's because it's made not to work or the people in charge have absolutely no interest in doing anything than feathering their own nests.
Back during Covid, Congress passed and Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act ("IRA"), which actually did a couple of good things.
One of those was the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax ("CAMT"). For non-Americans, AMTs are a weird thing where Congress basically gives up and decides the tax code is too complex so they give up and say whatever your deductions are, if the AMT produces a higher amount, that's what you have to pay. Every complexity is somebody's special interest so repealing them can be hard. It's kind of why the carried interest tax credit has never been repealed.
Repealing it, as Republicans tried to do, is hard to do because the counter-messaging is "well if the corporate tax rate is 21%, why do you care about repealing a minimum of 15%?". Everybody understands that companies through various tax schemes aren't paying 21% but you can't say that.
But the one I want to talk about is the 10 year plan to increase IRS funding to update incredibly outdated systems and increase enforcement. This was a good measure. And you can tell because the Republican Party lost their minds. They fairly successively propagandized it as the IRS hiring 80,000 agents to go after Joe Q. Citizen. No, it was enforcement against the ultra-wealthy and corporations. So it was killed in 3 years under the guise of "saving money" as well as not persecuting average citizens (which it was never going to do).
It's particularly stupid because money spent on IRS enforcement pays for itself. It's been estimated every $1 spent recovers $7. It pays for itself. But there was no counter-messaging and Republicans could push it through under reconiliation.
Compare that to the 4 year $175 billion increase in ICE funding.
joshstrange 1 hours ago [-]
> DoorDash to Acquire Instacart to Help Local Stores Win
> to Help Local Stores Win
Any local store will tell you DD is a necessary evil they put up with but strongly dislike overall. From the % of sales they take to the incredibly rude delivery drivers, DD is not well liked.
On multiple occasions a family member's employees (or they, themselves) have had a DD delivery driver cut to the front of the line, interrupt the cashier, and shove their phone in their face. No words, no anything, just "here is the code/screen/whatever I need to show you to pick up the order". DD doesn't let stores rate delivery drivers so there isn't any recourse.
Toynbeeidea 36 minutes ago [-]
I worked at a local grocery store while unemployed, and I actually PREFERRED the Doordash/Instacart customers.
Quite a few of them spoke no English, so yes, they'd just present their phone screen. I didn't take it as rude. It was a very clear and direct communication. A simple scan, and boom, nothing further needed, I could just scan their items. Thr QR code scan handled payment and everything. They almost always helped with doing thier own bagging: Time is money, after all.
SoftTalker 23 minutes ago [-]
The supermarket where I shop has a specific checkout station for delivery drivers. I have never seen one in a normal checkout line (not that it might be very obvious, especially if they were shopping not just picking up an order).
What I don't understand is why DD gets any cut of the store's profit. They should be paying retail like anyone else, and their customer paying for the delivery costs.
Toynbeeidea 4 minutes ago [-]
The supermarket I worked at had a split system. Our internal delivery people had their own checkout area, but it wasn't open 24/7. Doordash and the like had to go through the regular lines regardless.
brookst 1 hours ago [-]
Yeah mixed blessing at best. Increased volume, but not every 30-table restaurant is set up to do much more; kitchens are sized to expected in-person dining.
And all the stuff you mention.
The one restaurant owner I know who’s happy with DD set up an entirely separate kitchen in an industrial park. But to get to the DD revenue necessary to justify that investment, he had a couple of years of DD hell in his main restaurant.
mikepurvis 22 minutes ago [-]
That sounds like a scary investment to make on behalf of what's effectively a single customer. Without some kind of contractual commitment that locks in volume and price, they would really have you over a barrel.
ikety 56 minutes ago [-]
I hate industrial/ghost kitchens so much. Accidentally ordered from one with friends and it was so off-putting.
Could see the kitchen areas through a window and they weren't necessarily dirty, but looked sketchy for some reason. Few people, robots delivering orders, one set of cooks making the food. Just dystopian.
We might as well just build ready to eat food factories that pipe the slop directly into your house. We got rid of the "inconvenience" of going out to eat and enjoying a restaurant. Why not get rid of the pesky delivery middle-man too?
brookst 44 minutes ago [-]
Look up commissary kitchens. A ton of food is made that way, and I don’t see it as being all that different.
And the DD-specific kitchen I know is basically just a typical restaurant kitchen minus attached dining. You can make slop in an industrial park, you can make slop in a real restaurant (I’ve certainly experienced that).
Why in the world would it be necessary to have dining tables for a kitchen to make good food?
SoftTalker 20 minutes ago [-]
Many resstaurants are just heating up frozen portions delivered from Sysco or similar providers anyway.
paxy 2 hours ago [-]
I’d cry “antitrust” but who are we kidding at this point. The relevant parties have likely been paid off already.
clcaev 5 minutes ago [-]
While corruption is certainly a challenge, it’s distracting and demotivating. I think our focus should be on corrective action of systemic issues of law and its enforcement.
We might not remember how antitrust action can spur innovation, in particular, Bell/AT&T licensed Unix source code for a nominal fee, largely because the 1956 consent decree restricted Bell/AT&T from selling products outside telecommunications.
malfist 40 minutes ago [-]
But doordash says this merger means more choice for the consumer, how could antitrust play a role here? I mean, unless they're lying about removing choices from the market place will result in more choices in the market place, but doordash wouldn't do that would they?
boringg 2 hours ago [-]
I mean neither of these companies provide an important service. If they both disappeared tomorrow I think most people wouldn't care.
the__alchemist 1 hours ago [-]
IMO grocery delivery is a game changer. I don't use either service, but use a different one[s]. Even with a tip (I have been doing $15/per delivery), it's not much more expensive than normal groceries at Trader Joe's etc, and I don't have to put on outdoor clothes, walk to my car, navigate traffic, navigate the aisles, wait in line, reverse... IMO big QOL of life increase.
And second-order effects like I can always have fresh fruit + veggies / not worrying about rot by getting it in smaller quantities delivered more often.
For those wondering about price: It's much cheaper than takeout or prepared food delivery, but more expensive than getting your own groceries. Offset a bit by less food waste.
Mashimo 10 minutes ago [-]
How can that be profitable on the long run?
Feels like it will end up more expensive in a few years
toomuchtodo 1 hours ago [-]
But if they were gone, the worst is you're putting pants on and getting your own products. There are not essential, they're simply a labor and regulatory arbitrage for gig workers to schlep product to consumers at very low wages.
Toynbeeidea 32 minutes ago [-]
Not everyone can just "put their pants on." For some, its more of an ordeal at a physical level.
reaperducer 32 minutes ago [-]
if they were gone, the worst is you're putting pants on and getting your own products
Says someone with no problems putting on his pants and making a grocery run.
Just try to remember your own words when you get older. You'll get your turn. Everyone does.
the__alchemist 1 hours ago [-]
Valid!
stackskipton 1 hours ago [-]
Antitrust does not have "important service" requirement. What has happened in gaming is another travesty but there is plenty of people who would say it's not "important service". Antitrust must be universal.
paxy 1 hours ago [-]
Grocery delivery is an important service for a large chunk of the population. About 40 million people in the country (mostly low income) live in food deserts. Plenty more don't own cars. Doordash & co have burned VC money for a decade to monopolize the delivery pipeline so restaurants and grocery stores rarely hire their own drivers anymore. And now with this kind of consolidation they can raise their prices unchecked.
chunky1994 52 minutes ago [-]
Do you have a source that these low income Americans are the ones who are ordering food? My understanding was this was largely people with additional disposable income who were doing it for convenience and not necessity as the product for the price was a good enough trade off. I find it hard to believe low income Americans are getting their groceries delivered when they can’t afford the base prices for the most part.
cj 1 hours ago [-]
I know a lot of people who survive (almost) exclusively off take out and delivery. Especially in cities like NYC.
rovr138 1 hours ago [-]
And takeout and delivery existed before this.
the__alchemist 1 hours ago [-]
Takeout and prepared food delivery is much more expensive than grocery delivery.
stevetron 1 hours ago [-]
TYVM. But I rely on Instacart as I live alone and can't drive anymore since my eye surgery 10 years ago. If I didn't have instacart I don't know how I'd ever get any groceries.
ocd 2 hours ago [-]
I'd be curious to see if it lowered food prices at all if these services and their upcharges weren't around anymore to influence pricing.
999900000999 1 hours ago [-]
What if you’re disabled and need to order food ?
stevenwoo 1 hours ago [-]
The way this was handled before these gig economy food delivery companies sprang up. People didn't automatically die of starvation because they were disabled and became adults prior to DoorDash. Medicaid and Meals on Wheels fill in some of the gaps depending upon age and state.
paxy 1 hours ago [-]
These companies springing up put the old ones out of business. For example check the number of restaurants that hire their own drivers now. There's no going back to the "old way" when it doesn't exist. And now this kind of consolidation means they get to jack up prices however they want.
SoftTalker 8 minutes ago [-]
Those restaurants simply didn't deliver at all in those days.
Pizzarias and other traditional delivery food businesses still hire their own drivers in many cases.
DaSHacka 1 hours ago [-]
How many of their customers fit this description?
1 hours ago [-]
themightyquinn 15 minutes ago [-]
My initial take to this news was “what about anti trust?!” But I was surprised to learn that DD is essentially non existent in grocery delivery and instacart’s non grocery deliveries are powered by Uber Eats. For two massive brands they really don’t offer the same product.(edit: not effectively, at least) If anything maybe this helps Instacart/DD compete in grocery with the real giants in Walmart and Amazon. I wouldn’t be mad to see DOJ block this but I was just surprised to learn about the landscape of grocery delivery.
themightyquinn 9 minutes ago [-]
For context Walmart, Amazon, and Instacart each have about a quarter of the online grocery delivery market with smaller outfits like Kroger and Albertsons eating up the remaining quarter. If you believe this data, that is.
https://talkbusiness.net/2025/04/online-grocery-sales-rise-2...
ashu1461 44 minutes ago [-]
Doordash as an app or a business model always feel scammy and full of dark patterns.
With this merger I have a feeling that things are only going to go worse.
morelandjs 1 hours ago [-]
Man, can only imagine this is more bad news for delivery drivers.
the__alchemist 1 hours ago [-]
Hey - dumb question that is probably a derail: Is there a practical reason in the US to use Instacart over one of the Amazon services? It seems like they are fighting an uphill battle - Amazon has its own grocery warehouses (Prime food), and owns Whole foods. I haven't cross-shopped recently, but am having a hard time imagining them competing on price with either of those services. I suppose the obvious reason is you aren't limited to those two stores, so if you want specialty items, nice baked goods etc you would use Instacart?
imzadi 2 minutes ago [-]
Instacart is also integrated with several stores. Kroger and Costco both use Instacart for their pickup and delivery services in their own apps.
paxy 1 hours ago [-]
They do compete on price. Amazon charges for Prime, charges extra for delivery, and Whole Foods is generally among the most expensive grocery stores. Instacart offers a ton of cheap alternatives.
the__alchemist 43 minutes ago [-]
Do you find it, total price charged to card, to be competitive? What if you already have a Prime membership?
BugsJustFindMe 31 minutes ago [-]
> Do you find it, total price charged to card, to be competitive?
Yes. Instacart has low cost retailers like Walmart and Aldi in many areas, and their prices are generally better than Amazon groceries. Now Walmart does also have their own service, so technically you can do that, but then you're limited to just them.
micromacrofoot 1 hours ago [-]
Yeah instacart isn't limited to specific stores, you can even order from multiple stores and group them
ocd 2 hours ago [-]
I saw this show up in my newsreader and first thing that crossed my mind was the textbook example of eBay / PayPal acquiring everything, leaving us with probably the worst situation possible for auctions and payments.
tomsellin23 28 minutes ago [-]
Great, just one less competitor in the marketplace.
boringg 2 hours ago [-]
Am I on the wrong side of perspective? I imagine of these companies are at big risk in a turn down with low margin - competitive space. The model is a tough one to work
Merging reduces platform inefficiencies and drivers can work both situation.
I am actually amazed both companies are alive and making a profit.
rckclmbr 1 hours ago [-]
> Merging reduces platform inefficiencies
This was literally why Rockefeller was a big proponent of the monopoly. Unfortunately exploitation is the tradeoff that is enables
mithr 1 hours ago [-]
I'm mostly hoping this doesn't end up affecting Costco delivery, which works reasonably well and uses Instacart behind the scenes.
26 minutes ago [-]
inom155 31 minutes ago [-]
Wow, really didn't see this one coming.
hubraumhugo 2 hours ago [-]
I vividly remember the ZIRP era when there was a new food delivery (or e-scooter) startup almost every week.
lkey 1 hours ago [-]
"More Choice for Consumers"
A truly laughable fig leaf for the non-existent anti-trust regulators.
randbyte 30 minutes ago [-]
These two slimy companies do belong to each other. Perfect match made in hell.
htrp 2 hours ago [-]
food delivery stayed around, the e scooters not so much
micromacrofoot 1 hours ago [-]
Great, both are generally terrible. Nothing like ordering a pizza and having it sit in someone's car for an hour with a driver who has no attachment to the restaurant, who could not care less about what you think. At least delivery drivers employed by the restaurant had some slight incentive to get food to you while it was still edible.
Third party delivery services essentially break the chain of responsibility... food late and cold? tough luck, but please tip in advance. If you don't tip your driver will be very mad at you, maybe they'll text you about it, and we pay them so poorly that it's actually your fault for keeping them impoverished. Talk to our customer service bots and maybe we'll give you a $5 coupon for your next Doordash order.
Liuser 8 minutes ago [-]
On the other countering opinion, I am a generally happy customer of both parties for years now (I pay for dashpass). I think I’m probably one of their heavier users as I use both services multiple times per week. Being a caretaker and a new father simultaneously where both DoorDash and Instacart have been a blessing.
Food generally arrives warm and if not, a quick heat up in the air fryer generally solves most things. Soup based noodles are generally packed separately that you need to prepare it at home anyway.
My main gripe is there is the general occasional missed small item (like sauces, a drink), which I do complain about in DD. I imagine DD does provide this feedback to restaurants because it has been trending better over time.
Zestymarble45 1 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
Rendered at 14:35:25 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
A couple days after my wife launched her campaign, Instacart did a 180 and told her they had to fire her for running. Bad for business to run for office and criticize a Republican incumbent!
My wife was also pregnant and she told them. They fired her the next day.
Congratulations on the merger.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/12/15/instacart...
He called support who contacted the customer and said they were on their way and could he wait five minutes. Of course he did but 30 minutes went by.
Contacted support again who said customer would be there in five minutes but, 15 minutes later, support said to just take the goods back to the store.
He took the goods back to the store but the store refused to accept them. Support said he could just donate them or keep them.
Despite showing the back and forth text messages, he was deactivated for not delivering to the customer.
Not a lawyer but my intuition says there might be some legal grounds here favouring the wife.
My take is someone even higher up found out later and did not like it. Now it’s entirely possible the individuals who gave their blessings were supportive of the party the wife was standing for, and the ones above them weren’t? Still whoever blessed the campaign did so in their capacity as a senior officer of the company. A total shit show nevertheless.
To the original commenter: sorry this happened to your wife. Hope she’s able to find another job that treats her right. Also congrats on the baby, hoping parenthood makes up for all of this and more. Sending the best of wishes your way.
If a person made a large contribution or gave other public support to an extremist candidate, an employer might not want any association with that.
If running for an office is going to take up a significant amount of one's time, such that it might impact availability for work during normal hours, an employer would care about that.
In this specfic case, if she was featuring "I work for Instacart" in any way in her campaign they might care about that.
If she was saying anything inflamatory or controversial, Instacart might not want to be associated with that.
So running for a nonpartisan office such as a local council or school board or similar would normally not be any issue. Anything where party politics feature prominently is going to be riskier.
Can you criticize them instead for firing her for something that their Chief Corporate Affairs Officer explicitly gave her permission to do? If it was a matter of pragmatism, they could have declined her request for permission. (One might separately argue about whether this should be a matter of right vs a matter of permission, but regardless, she did seek permission and was granted it.)
That's a terrible attitude that's resulted in some of the worst behaviour of capitulation history has ever recorded. What will you call their "pragmatism" when your the target?
From the NYT version of this story:
> DoorDash said the median payment to be returned to workers amounts to around $48. > City officials said about 700 workers are owed more than $10,000 each; more than 27,000 workers are owed more than $1,000; and more than 4,000 workers are owed more than $5,000.
DoorDash also spent (from what I can tell) (1+1.4+1.8) million dollars to campaign against Mamdani.
https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/09/mayor-mamdani...
Culper Research released a report about a year ago indicating a large component of DoorDash labor is very likely undocumented workers (which is not meant to be derogatory towards these workers, but signal that DoorDash needs labor willing to take gig payments on offer to make the model work).
https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/cc91fda7-4669-4d1b-81ce-a0b...
I don't think the platform economics are working post ZIRP ("zero interest rate policy") as wages rise and margins compress, would need more data to understand what forward curves look like.
Back during Covid, Congress passed and Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act ("IRA"), which actually did a couple of good things.
One of those was the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax ("CAMT"). For non-Americans, AMTs are a weird thing where Congress basically gives up and decides the tax code is too complex so they give up and say whatever your deductions are, if the AMT produces a higher amount, that's what you have to pay. Every complexity is somebody's special interest so repealing them can be hard. It's kind of why the carried interest tax credit has never been repealed.
Repealing it, as Republicans tried to do, is hard to do because the counter-messaging is "well if the corporate tax rate is 21%, why do you care about repealing a minimum of 15%?". Everybody understands that companies through various tax schemes aren't paying 21% but you can't say that.
But the one I want to talk about is the 10 year plan to increase IRS funding to update incredibly outdated systems and increase enforcement. This was a good measure. And you can tell because the Republican Party lost their minds. They fairly successively propagandized it as the IRS hiring 80,000 agents to go after Joe Q. Citizen. No, it was enforcement against the ultra-wealthy and corporations. So it was killed in 3 years under the guise of "saving money" as well as not persecuting average citizens (which it was never going to do).
It's particularly stupid because money spent on IRS enforcement pays for itself. It's been estimated every $1 spent recovers $7. It pays for itself. But there was no counter-messaging and Republicans could push it through under reconiliation.
Compare that to the 4 year $175 billion increase in ICE funding.
> to Help Local Stores Win
Any local store will tell you DD is a necessary evil they put up with but strongly dislike overall. From the % of sales they take to the incredibly rude delivery drivers, DD is not well liked.
On multiple occasions a family member's employees (or they, themselves) have had a DD delivery driver cut to the front of the line, interrupt the cashier, and shove their phone in their face. No words, no anything, just "here is the code/screen/whatever I need to show you to pick up the order". DD doesn't let stores rate delivery drivers so there isn't any recourse.
Quite a few of them spoke no English, so yes, they'd just present their phone screen. I didn't take it as rude. It was a very clear and direct communication. A simple scan, and boom, nothing further needed, I could just scan their items. Thr QR code scan handled payment and everything. They almost always helped with doing thier own bagging: Time is money, after all.
What I don't understand is why DD gets any cut of the store's profit. They should be paying retail like anyone else, and their customer paying for the delivery costs.
And all the stuff you mention.
The one restaurant owner I know who’s happy with DD set up an entirely separate kitchen in an industrial park. But to get to the DD revenue necessary to justify that investment, he had a couple of years of DD hell in his main restaurant.
Could see the kitchen areas through a window and they weren't necessarily dirty, but looked sketchy for some reason. Few people, robots delivering orders, one set of cooks making the food. Just dystopian.
We might as well just build ready to eat food factories that pipe the slop directly into your house. We got rid of the "inconvenience" of going out to eat and enjoying a restaurant. Why not get rid of the pesky delivery middle-man too?
And the DD-specific kitchen I know is basically just a typical restaurant kitchen minus attached dining. You can make slop in an industrial park, you can make slop in a real restaurant (I’ve certainly experienced that).
Why in the world would it be necessary to have dining tables for a kitchen to make good food?
We might not remember how antitrust action can spur innovation, in particular, Bell/AT&T licensed Unix source code for a nominal fee, largely because the 1956 consent decree restricted Bell/AT&T from selling products outside telecommunications.
And second-order effects like I can always have fresh fruit + veggies / not worrying about rot by getting it in smaller quantities delivered more often.
For those wondering about price: It's much cheaper than takeout or prepared food delivery, but more expensive than getting your own groceries. Offset a bit by less food waste.
Feels like it will end up more expensive in a few years
Says someone with no problems putting on his pants and making a grocery run.
Just try to remember your own words when you get older. You'll get your turn. Everyone does.
Pizzarias and other traditional delivery food businesses still hire their own drivers in many cases.
With this merger I have a feeling that things are only going to go worse.
Yes. Instacart has low cost retailers like Walmart and Aldi in many areas, and their prices are generally better than Amazon groceries. Now Walmart does also have their own service, so technically you can do that, but then you're limited to just them.
Merging reduces platform inefficiencies and drivers can work both situation.
I am actually amazed both companies are alive and making a profit.
This was literally why Rockefeller was a big proponent of the monopoly. Unfortunately exploitation is the tradeoff that is enables
A truly laughable fig leaf for the non-existent anti-trust regulators.
Third party delivery services essentially break the chain of responsibility... food late and cold? tough luck, but please tip in advance. If you don't tip your driver will be very mad at you, maybe they'll text you about it, and we pay them so poorly that it's actually your fault for keeping them impoverished. Talk to our customer service bots and maybe we'll give you a $5 coupon for your next Doordash order.
Food generally arrives warm and if not, a quick heat up in the air fryer generally solves most things. Soup based noodles are generally packed separately that you need to prepare it at home anyway.
My main gripe is there is the general occasional missed small item (like sauces, a drink), which I do complain about in DD. I imagine DD does provide this feedback to restaurants because it has been trending better over time.